The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity

Physicists have been exploring, debating, and questioning the general theory of relativity ever since Albert Einstein first presented itin 1915. Their work has uncovered a number of the universe's more surprising secrets, and many believe further wonders remain hidden within the theory's tangle of equations, waiting to be exposed. In this sweeping narrative of science and culture, astrophysicist Pedro Ferreira brings general relativity to life through the story of the brilliant physicists, mathematicians, and astronomers who have taken up its challenge.

The Greatest Story Ever Told - So Far: Why Are We Here?

Internationally renowned, award-winning theoretical physicist, New York Times bestselling author of A Universe from Nothing, and passionate advocate for reason, Lawrence Krauss tells the dramatic story of the discovery of the hidden world of reality - a grand poetic vision of nature - and how we find our place within it.

Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue

In this short book, Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz invite you to join an urgently needed conversation: Is Islam a religion of peace or war? Is it amenable to reform? Why do so many Muslims seem drawn to extremism? What do words like Islamism, jihadism, and fundamentalism mean in today's world? Remarkable for the breadth and depth of its analysis, this dialogue between a famous atheist and a former radical is all the more startling for its decorum. Harris and Nawaz have produced something genuinely new: they engage one of the most polarizing issues of our time - fearlessly and fully - and actually make progress.

Andre Wallace Simonsen says:"Must read for an honest debate on the topics"

Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies

What is economic growth? And why, historically, has it occurred in only a few places? Previous efforts to answer these questions have focused on institutions, geography, finances, and psychology. But according to MIT's anti-disciplinarian César Hidalgo, understanding the nature of economic growth demands transcending the social sciences and including the natural sciences of information, networks, and complexity. To understand the growth of economies, Hidalgo argues, we first need to understand the growth of order.

The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

The previous edition of this now-classic book revealed the existence and subversive manipulations of "economic hit men". John Perkins wrote that economic hit men (EHM) "are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder".

Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War

As cyber attacks dominate front-page news, as hackers join the list of global threats, and as top generals warn of a coming cyber war, few books are more timely and enlightening than Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War by Slate columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Fred Kaplan.

Intellectuals and Society

This is a study of how intellectuals as a class affect modern societies by shaping the climate of opinion in which official policies develop, on issues ranging from economics to law to war and peace. You will hear a withering and clear-eyed critique about (but not for) intellectuals that explores their impact on public opinion, policy, and society at large.

Writing Creative Nonfiction

Bringing together the imaginative strategies of fiction storytelling and new ways of narrating true, real-life events, creative nonfiction is the fastest-growing part of the creative writing world. It's a cutting-edge genre that's reshaping how we write (and read) everything from biographies and memoirs to blogs and public speaking scripts to personal essays and magazine articles.

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris' recent best-seller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos.

Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters; From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima

From the moment radiation was discovered in the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative scientific exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters.

The Complete TurtleTrader: How 23 Novice Investors Became Overnight Millionaires

This is the true story behind Wall Street legend Richard Dennis, his disciples, the Turtles, and the trading techniques that made them millionaires. What happens when ordinary people are taught a system to make extraordinary money? Richard Dennis made a fortune on Wall Street by investing according to a few simple rules.

Fear of Physics

Fear of Physics is a lively, irreverent, and informative look at everything from the physics of boiling water to cutting-edge research at the observable limits of the universe. Rich with anecdotes and accessible examples, it nimbly ranges over the tools and thought behind the world of modern physics, taking the mystery out of what is essentially a very human intellectual endeavor.

Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion

Jazz is a uniquely American art form, one of America's great contributions to not only musical culture, but world culture, with each generation of musicians applying new levels of creativity that take the music in unexpected directions that defy definition, category, and stagnation. Now you can learn the basics and history of this intoxicating genre in an eight-lecture series that is as free-flowing and original as the art form itself.

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay Gibson exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood. By freeing yourself from your parents' emotional immaturity, you can recover your true nature, control how you react to them, and avoid disappointment. Finally, you'll learn how to create positive new relationships so you can build a better life.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There's no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson. But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in digestible chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.

The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War

John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this book, Stephen Kinzer places their extraordinary lives against the backdrop ofAmerican culture and history. He uses the framework of biography to ask: Why does the United States behave as it does in the world?

Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion

Scientology, created in 1954 by a prolific sci-fi writer named L. Ron Hubbard, claims to be the world's fastest-growing religion, with millions of members around the world and huge financial holdings. Its celebrity believers keep its profile high, and its teams of "volunteer ministers" offer aid at disaster sites such as Haiti and the World Trade Center. But Scientology is also a notably closed faith, harassing journalists and others through litigation and intimidation, even infiltrating the highest levels of government to further its goals.

Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle: Transform Your Body Forever Using the Secrets of the Leanest People in the World

A smart, energizing program to help you shed fat, build muscle, and achieve your ideal body in just 30 days! A huge success as a self-published e-book, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is the bible of fat loss that will help anyone to get his or her dream body. Tom Venuto has created a program using the secrets of the world's leanest people, although it's not about getting ripped; it is about maximizing your fat loss through nutrient timing and strategic exercise. This totally revised and 25 percent-new book includes a never-before-shared plan that will make it even easier for everyone to achieve amazing results.

The Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands to rethink their beliefs about life.

The God Delusion

Discover magazine recently called Richard Dawkins "Darwin's Rottweiler" for his fierce and effective defense of evolution. Prospect magazine voted him among the top three public intellectuals in the world (along with Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky). Now Dawkins turns his considerable intellect on religion, denouncing its faulty logic and the suffering it causes.

Welcome to the Universe is a personal guided tour of the cosmos by three of today's leading astrophysicists. Inspired by the enormously popular introductory astronomy course that Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, and J. Richard Gott taught together at Princeton, this book covers it all - from planets, stars, and galaxies to black holes, wormholes, and time travel.

Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally)

Words on the Move opens our eyes to the surprising backstories to the words and expressions we use every day. Did you know that silly once meant "blessed"? Or that ought was the original past tense of owe? Or that the suffix -ly in adverbs is actually a remnant of the word like? And have you ever wondered why some people from New Orleans sound as if they come from Brooklyn?

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution

Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their constituents. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today’s developing countries—with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.

The Book of Mastery

The channeled literature of Paul Selig - who receives clairaudient dictation from unseen intellects called the Guides - has quickly become the most important and celebrated expression of channeling since A Course in Miracles rose to prominence in the 1970s. Selig's three previous books - I Am the Word, The Book of Love and Creation, and The Book of Knowing and Worth - have won a growing following around the world for their depth, intimacy, and psychological insight. The Book of Mastery provides a deeply practical prescription for heightening your abilities, aptitudes, and sense of personal excellence.

Publisher's Summary

Where did the universe come from? What was there before it? What will the future bring? And finally, why is there something rather than nothing?

Krauss’ answers to these and other timeless questions, in a wildly popular lecture on YouTube, has attracted almost a million viewers. The last of these questions in particular has been at the center of religious and philosophical debates about the existence of God, and it’s the supposed counterargument to anyone who questions the need for God. Scientists have, however, historically focused on more pressing issues—such as figuring out how the universe actually functions, which could help us to improve our quality of life.

In this cosmological story that rivets as it enlightens, pioneering theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss explains groundbreaking scientific advances that turn the most basic philosophical questions on their head. One of the few prominent scientists to have actively crossed the chasm between science and popular culture, Krauss reveals that modern science is indeed addressing the question of why there is something rather than nothing—with surprising and fascinating results. The beautiful experimental observations and mind-bending theories are all described accessibly, and they suggest that not only can something arise from nothing, something will always arise from nothing.

With his characteristic wry humor and clear explanations, Krauss takes us back to the beginning of the beginning, presenting recent evidence for how our universe evolved—and the implications for how it will end. It will provoke, challenge, and delight listeners as it looks at the most basic underpinnings of existence in a whole new way. And this knowledge that our universe will be quite different in the future has profound consequences and directly affects how we live in the present. As Richard Dawkins described it, this could potentially be the most important scientific book with implications for supernaturalism since Darwin.

What the Critics Say

“Nothing is not nothing. Nothing is something. That’s how a cosmos can be spawned from the void—a profound idea conveyed in A Universe from Nothing that unsettles some yet enlightens others. Meanwhile, it’s just another day on the job for physicist Lawrence Krauss.” (Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, American Museum of Natural History)

Let me just say, this book is great! But if you (like me) have gone thru a few books on the subject, for example Stephen Hawkins and Leonard Mlodinow’s The Grand Design (A more extensive look into this subject) this one will not make you much cleverer. But it will not bore you, far from it.<br/><br/>If you have no prior knowledge on the details surrounding the subject this book offers you great new insight from the world of physics and cosmology on how the universe came to be from absolutely nothing. Let me offer you the short layman formula: First there was nothing but nothing happens to be unstable on the quantum level. This “unstableness” created something that we now know as the Big Bang. Sounds weird? Yes it does, and that is one of many side stories of this book: That the modern understanding of reality goes beyond what we humans might be able to understand, comprehend and prefere. A quote from the book summarize this in seven words: “The universe does not owe us comfort”. And perhaps that is true, but I assure any potential reader that this book will offer you awe and wonder about the nature of reality and perhaps a better understanding of what reality is - and what it is not.

The author’s narration is completely excellent. The book moves quickly and seemed to have much more information than I would have expected from a relatively short work (5.5 hours). I really felt this had the content of something twice as long.

This book is packed with interesting ideas about how the universe might have evolved from nothingness. Note the all important “might”. This book is much, much less speculative than many popular physics books, nevertheless it is quite speculative, so should be enjoyed as mind broadening and definitely not science fact.

Most modern popular physics books share a common weakness. The authors are Relativists, String Theorist, Quantumists, or Informationists, but seldom crossover or generalists. Krauss is a relativist with a nod or two to quantum theory and virtually no string theory or information theory. This is a significant weakness. Relativists often cling to particles and continuums of space-time even though there is good reasons to believe both particles and all continuums merely observer phenomena.

I would recommend reading “The Trouble with Physics” before any other popular physics books.

Although the author is good at keeping the ideas interesting while (mildly) mentioning how much we don’t know, there is an afterword by Dawkins which was a bit science-thumping and I found to be a very weak ending.

I mostly read or listen to sci-fi/fantasy and leave getting my cosmology, quantum theory, and particle physics to the nice, digestible shows produced by Discovery, the History channel, and the like. I also really try not to use credits on something this short (less than 6 hours!)...but I'm glad I made an exception for this one. I'll admit I had to listen to the book twice (but enjoyed it both times), and that there are still some things this guy says that...I'll probably never comprehend, but wow...this book is interesting. The author also does the narration, which was actually good in this case - he's got this...sort of...animated, smart-alecky attitude combined with true passion and excitement for his work. I also like his attention to detail (or I should say attention to the right details - trying to cram all the details that went into this work would make a book like this completely inaccessible to someone like me) and his overall...take on science - that scientists don't know everything and how they should spend as much time trying to disprove their results as they do trying to prove them, etc.

Anyway - the book kind of brings you up to speed on where these guys are on figuring out...the universe, and presents some really interesting ideas on where everything came from (spoiler alert: it's in the title :P - but it's not that simple, trust me). If you're at all interested in the subject - get this book. Oh, and one final thing - Krauss doesn't say there isn't a god - just that there doesn't HAVE to be one - but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to be able superimpose god over what's being presented here either [translated: if you believe in god, this isn't going to change your opinion]

The first 2/3 of this already short book are given to an overview of more or less recent developments in physics and cosmology, in preparation for the final 1/3, where at last the subject of the book's title is addressed. When the main arguments of the book do arrive, they turn out to be based on somewhat preliminary and speculative physics- very interesting, but nowhere near satisfying or convincing as an explanation of 'how something could arise from nothing.' Also, the author promises to show how the universe(s) could come into existence without 'preexisting' physical laws- his nothing plus ultra- but fails to actually do so. Honestly I would have been quite surprised and impressed if he had; but it illustrates the most frustrating aspect of the book, which is that it purports to sketch out a framework to obviate all manner of prime mover / first cause arguments, but fails pretty resoundingly to do so.

'Nothing' is impossible. Just as 'nothing' goes faster than the speed of light (two galaxies far away from each other will recede from each other faster than speed of light), 'nothing' is unstable. Virtual particles will be created and there will be a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. He explains way better than I can and this short book is worth the listen.

The book explains how our understanding of space has been changing over time. They used to say space was a vacuum, then they would add something to the definition until finally they say that the fabric of space is teeming with vacuum energy and virtual particles are constantly being created and destroyed and dark energy floating around.

I'm a little bit puzzled why this book didn't make a bigger splash after it's publication. The author did such a good job at defending his view points. I guess, part of the problem is his view points on creation aren't mainstream. There is also the little problem of the biggest mismatch in all of science. The 10 to the 120th magnitude difference between what theory predicts and how much dark energy there really is.

The author is an exception to the rule that the author should never read his own book. He does a very good job.

The book is well explained, read and concise. Well worth the quick listen and will give you a good explanation for a possible explanation for our place in the universe.

This book is on the one hand a delight, and on the other hand a disappointment.

It's a lively and interesting look at current physics--or at least, physics as of 2011; developments have continued. Krauss gives us a clear, interesting, and compelling account of the current scientific understanding of how our universe came into existence, how matter and energy can come from nothing, and why such exotic concepts as dark matter are fundamental to understanding how this universe works the way it does and why we are even able to exist.

And if my references to "this universe" and "our universe" seem a bit strange, well, Krauss also describes why it's likely there's more than one universe.

This is all challenging material, and Krauss makes it worth the work to pay careful attention. That's a vital skill in a good science popularizer--and we need more good science popularizers. Children taught in school that science is a matter of rote memorization to pass a test are at far too high a risk of becoming adults who think science is a matter of belief and ideology--and that scientists are just being narrow-minded when they insist climate change is real, or that so-called "creation science" is simply, factually false, and not anything like real science. They will, in short, be at risk of becoming adults who think science is a liberal conspiracy out to undermine decent moral and religious values, and wreck our economy and way of life.

Where we run into trouble in this book is that Krauss thinks he has not not just make the science clear, but also make it clear that, in his mind, which he takes to be objective fact, of course you are totally free to believe in God, but "God" is completely unnecessary... He's far too polite, reasonable, and probably a totally nice guy, to say that only fools believe in God.

He doesn't seem to understand, as many other atheist or agnostic scientists do understand, that religion and science are not about the same things. (Granted, there are religious believers who make the same mistake, aided and abetted by poor quality science education in the schools.) No, Mr. Krauss, I don't need to know your views on God, or your views on my belief in God, to be a fascinated and receptive audience for your explication of the physics and cosmology you've devoted your professional life to doing such good work in. I'm not interested in what Christopher Hitchens had to say; if I were, I would read his books to find out, not yours. There's no need to quote him repeatedly in a books I'm reading because I want to know about the physics and cosmology you're writing about.

Seriously.

Now, I do need to say that there was not so much of this stuff that it prevented me from enjoying the book and learning from it. And I'm well aware that what annoyed me will make this book more attractive to some readers. If so, great! Enjoy! I don't write these reviews to discourage anyone from reading something they'll enjoy. My hope is, in fact, that even if you disagree with my judgments, you'll still be able to recognize in my reviews books you'll enjoy even if I dislike them, and books you won't enjoy even if I love them.

In any case, I did enjoy A Universe From Nothing. I just would have enjoyed it a bit more if he'd stayed on topic better.

I mostly read or listen to sci-fi/fantasy and leave getting my cosmology, quantum theory, and particle physics to the nice, digestible shows produced by Discovery, the History channel, and the like. I also really try not to use credits on something this short (less than 6 hours!)...but I'm glad I made an exception for this one. I'll admit I had to listen to the book twice (but enjoyed it both times), and that there are still some things this guy says that...I'll probably never comprehend, but wow...this book is interesting. The author also does the narration, which was actually good in this case - he's got this...sort of...animated, smart-alecky attitude combined with true passion and excitement for his work. I also like his attention to detail (or I should say attention to the right details - trying to cram all the details that went into this work would make a book like this completely inaccessible to someone like me) and his overall...take on science - that scientists don't know everything and how they should spend as much time trying to disprove their results as they do trying to prove them, etc.

Anyway - the book kind of brings you up to speed on where these guys are on figuring out...the universe, and presents some really interesting ideas on where everything came from (spoiler alert: it's in the title :P - but it's not that simple, trust me). If you're at all interested in the subject - get this book. Oh, and one final thing - Krauss doesn't say there isn't a god - just that there doesn't HAVE to be one - but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to be able superimpose god over what's being presented here either [translated: if you believe in god, this isn't going to change your opinion]

Narrated by Krause himself, this book this book explains so much about how our universe works. After listening to it I feel both humbled and inspired to learn more. You might want to go back and listen to a few difficult topics again but this book is definitely worth a listen.

A wonderful look into the deepest structures of our universe, to which Dr. Krauss then expands upon these irrevocable facts to skew just how we get what we have today from what was ultimately the nothing of before...